Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus for arranging items such as picture, text, or the like in a limited canvas, and more particularly, to an apparatus, a method, and a computer readable recording medium for arranging a plurality of items automatically in a canvas in a form of a collage while maintaining the original size ratio between the items.
Discussion of the Background
Since a function (i.e., a collage function) of arranging items (for example, picture, text or the like) having various sizes and shapes in one fixed space on-line may show a plurality of items at a glance, this function is frequently used in web contents or the like.
As an example of a technology for arranging the various items in one space, a method of generating a collage with a plurality of pictures is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,743,322 entitled “Automatic Photo Album Page Layout” filed by Hewlett-Packard Co., where the pictures are arranged in an order of input thereof, and a newly input picture is arranged at the right or lower portion of one among the existing arranged pictures. The above processes are repeated until inputs of all pictures are completed.
However, in order to arrange the input picture at the right or lower portion of an existing arranged picture, it is necessarily required to change the size of the input picture. Therefore, the relative sizes between the original pictures may not be maintained in the finally generated collage. That is, a case in which a picture originally having the smallest size may be shown to be the largest size in the collage.
As another example, a method of arranging as many images as possible in a rectangular region having a fixed size to reduce space waste is disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-1049813 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Arranging Automatically Images” and filed by NHN Corporation, where the largest image not exceeding the size of the region is arranged at a corner of the left upper portion of the region, two remaining spaces having a rectangular shape at the right and the lower portion of the arranged image are set as new spaces, and subsequent images are then repeatedly arranged in the new spaces in the same scheme.
However, the above-mentioned arrangement method of Korean Patent No. 10-1049813 is a scheme in which it densely and fixedly arranges the item at the corner of the left upper portion of each region and arranges the subsequent items in the remaining space, and in this method, it is impossible to form a new space between the items that are already arranged and subsequent items. In addition, in the above-mentioned method, since the item exceeding the size of a specific region may not be arranged in the specific region and has to find another larger region to be arranged, utilization rate of the space is relatively low. In addition, since the above-mentioned method has an object of minimizing memory waste at the time of graphic work rather than a collage generation, a method of effectively distributing the remaining spaces, or the like may not be considered.
Therefore, there is a need for a method for arranging items to minimize blank spaces of a collage by maximally visualizing each item while exactly maintaining a size ratio between the items in the limited space.